Elie Wiesel

Nobel Prize for Peace

You can be a silent witness, which means silence itself can become a way of communication. There is so much in silence. There is an archeology of silence. There is a geography of silence. There is a theology of silence. There is a history of silence. Silence is universal and you can work within it, within its own parameters and its own context, and make that silence into a testimony. Job was silent after he lost his children and everything, his fortune and his health. Job, for seven days and seven nights he was silent, and his three friends who came to visit him were also silent. That must have been a powerful silence, a brilliant silence. You see, silence itself can be testimony and I was waiting for ten years, really, but it wasn't the intention. My intention simply was to be sure that the words I would use are the proper words. I was afraid of language. View Interview with Elie WieselView Biography of Elie WieselView Profile of Elie WieselView Photo Gallery of Elie Wiesel

Lenny Wilkens

Basketball Hall of Fame

My mother had to raise us by herself, and it was a very difficult time. But at that time growing up in Brooklyn, you know, baseball was very popular and everyone in the neighborhood -- we were all sort of into sports and we all played baseball. I used to go to the games quite a bit and at that time I saw a young player by the name of Jackie Robinson, who was the first Afro-American to play major league baseball. I began to watch him and I saw things about his character that I really liked. And one, he was never intimidated by anybody; two, he never made excuses for himself. He came to play every game. He was a man on the field and off the field. What I mean by "off the field," you know, his family, business, all these things. And he became my role model. View Interview with Lenny WilkensView Biography of Lenny WilkensView Profile of Lenny WilkensView Photo Gallery of Lenny Wilkens

Lenny Wilkens

Basketball Hall of Fame

I saw prejudice in the world, and it bothered me that the Church didn't speak out against it more forcefully. It does today, but it didn't at that time. And I have a lot of people I know who turned away from the Church or were upset, you know, and everything. But in turning away they turned away from God too, and I said, "Wait a minute, you know. God gives us free will to do what we want to do. Okay? So why should I indict him for something some human being is doing?" And so I refused to do that, you know. But I was disappointed in a lot of people who were in the Church, okay, because of them not speaking out, and even their attitudes. View Interview with Lenny WilkensView Biography of Lenny WilkensView Profile of Lenny WilkensView Photo Gallery of Lenny Wilkens

Lenny Wilkens

Basketball Hall of Fame

I was in my economics class, it was a theory class, and the professor was this Dominican Father named Father Kirk, who was a wonderful guy. And being "W," Wilkens, I was always in the back somewhere. And so I'm watching him as he's asking questions, and I see him skip over this one student, and he goes asking questions, and he skips over another student. And so he's doing this, and so he gets to the back row and there's a kid named Ray Weber who was a great baseball player sitting next to me, and he skips over Ray, and he skips over me. And I stood up and I said, "Wait a minute. What's going on?" I said, "Don't we get a chance to answer questions?" You know? And he started laughing, you know. I guess maybe I was the first one to do that. But I had studied. I knew those answers. I wanted to answer the questions. So, I began to realize that "athletes were great athletes but they weren't very smart." And so I was going to prove them wrong. And, you know, they posted the dean's list, guys who made the dean's list, and everybody saw it. And so I made sure that I made the dean's list every year and that I was in the top third of my class. You know, I took it as a challenge but I felt very strongly about it. "We're students, too, and we need to be treated that way." So, I made sure I could compete in the classroom as well as on the basketball court. View Interview with Lenny WilkensView Biography of Lenny WilkensView Profile of Lenny WilkensView Photo Gallery of Lenny Wilkens

Ian Wilmut

Pioneer of Cloning

Are the things which may come from something you're thinking of doing beneficial? Very often of course there's a double edge to it, and so it's a question of, does the benefit outweigh any disadvantages that there are? So it is, if you like, a pragmatic judgment that I'm making. And so, if you're thinking of experimenting with animals, that may cause distress and pain to the animal. "Is the distress that you're going to cause justified by the potential benefit in terms of new treatments for human patients?" for example, would be the sort of judgment that we have to make all the time. And, we have to not only make those judgments, but document them to a supervisory system. In terms of human applications of cloning, in terms of application of cloning, essentially the same sort of process. Is this sort of thing which has been thought about beneficial? So that if you're asking the question, for example, "Is it appropriate to think of making a copy of a person?" You have to ask not only, "What is the benefit to the people who are asking for this to be done?" But also, "What's the impact on the child that's going to be produced?" And that last bit I think often gets missed out. View Interview with Ian WilmutView Biography of Ian WilmutView Profile of Ian WilmutView Photo Gallery of Ian Wilmut

Ian Wilmut

Pioneer of Cloning

We are starting a project now to try to make genetic changes in pigs, so that they can be used to provide organs for human patients. Now, if you take a pig organ and put it into a human it's destroyed immediately by an immune response, so we have to find a way of making a genetic change in a pig, so that that particular response is prevented. Now, of course, to some people that whole idea is really appalling. And, I think that it's important that there is discussion about this, so that there can be a social judgment for each country as to whether this is an acceptable thing to do. View Interview with Ian WilmutView Biography of Ian WilmutView Profile of Ian WilmutView Photo Gallery of Ian Wilmut